


Losing Nouns

by fizzworks



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aging, Gen, Philosophy, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 23:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzworks/pseuds/fizzworks
Summary: The nouns go first.





	Losing Nouns

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favourites. Increasingly apt, these days.

***

The nouns go first,  
quietly, unobtrusively slipping away   
like polite guests   
when the host is drunk   
  
You poke around desperately  
in memory's pigeonhole   
but it's empty,  
the noun that lived there has gone   
  
Some nouns are nothing,   
unwanted, unnoticed,  
lost layers of trivia   
in the sediment of your past   
  
But a name that matters   
is your story, your life,   
and even obscure ones   
are precious and are mourned   
  
Those berries in Oslo,   
that movie with the spiders?   
your first boyfriend's surname,  
he was from Iowa? Illinois?   
  
Bored youths with perfect nouns   
but no use for vowels   
text each other cheekily   
as you flail, frustrated   
  
Fruitlessly trying   
to locate a song title   
in empty noun-holes   
where thingies and whatsits squat   
  
Everything goes of course,   
hair, eyesight, hearing,   
people are patient   
and you can get by   
  
Soldiering on as your nouns dissolve,   
hoping this moth-eaten grip on language   
is somehow readying you   
to grapple with the nameless

***


End file.
